Identification of helpful and trustworthy persons of the Nanga Parbat region in the Northern Areas of Pakistan

You are here: Guide to the Nanga Parbat region > Area and people > Peoples

Imprint / Terms of use      Impressum / Nutzungsbedingungen

Liver Khan of village Bunar Jal (coordinates: N35.2851 E74.2970), member of the Executive councile of the Alpine Club Pakistan, works since many years with expeditions and is operating the local cooperative Nanga Parbat Adventure. Liver Khan has very profound view of western life, because he has been many times and very long in Europe, so his view is sharpened and his interest is based on own experience. He is taking care in bringing school-education to the children in Diamer area, and he is responsible for Reinhold Messners schoolproject in Ser.
Liver has a special relation to the family of late Hermann Buhl, the first mountaineer to climb Nanga Parbat in 1953. During his winter-visit in Germany, 2004, he has spent some days together with Samander Khan within the Buhl family.

Samander Khan (sometimes misspelled Samandar Khan) of village Bunar Jal is a choosen member and representative of the Area commitee, he works since  many years for the leading trekking companies in Pakistan as an senior mountain guide. Samander Khan is specialized in the Baltoro region and naturally, in his homearea Diamer. He got an professional mountain-guide education by the Alpine Club and is working since many years as an Liaison officer with expeditions climbing Nanga Parbat. In 1986 a climbing route on the Mazeno Peaks was named after him "Samander route", because it was tried against his advice "No good route".
Samander has visited Germany in the wintertime 2004, and spent there some days within the family of late Hermann Buhl.

In July 2005 Samander Khan found on the Diamer Glacier the remains of an corps who is said to be Guenther Messner, the brother of wellknown mountaineer Reinhold Messner. Guenther  disappeared in 1970 by descenting Nanga Parbat. His name was given to the   "Guenther Mountain School" in Ser, Diamer.

Naderjan of village Bunar Jal, the younger brother of Samander Khan,  works also since many years with expeditions on Nanga Parbat, specially on the Diamer side. Naderjan is a very skillfull person, who has done many very beautiful house-building work, specially carpenting. Naderjan is one of the best horse-riders in Diamer.

Mahteen, also a younger brother of Samander Khan and Naderjan, is the teacher of the village Bunar Jal. He has worked for many years as a teacher in Diamoroi and passed successfull the middle-school teacher-examination. Mahteen is now the head-teacher in his homevillage. For some years he was the only teacher in his village and had up to 70 children in his school. Beside his duty Mahteen is a very experienced mountain guide during the summer school-holidays.

Kashkar, the wizard-cook from Village Diamoroi (27.7km air-distance to Nanga Parbat) and a cousin of Samander Khan, has become famous by his working as an cook for expeditions on Nanga Parbat. Kashkar is very skillfull, not only in  cooking, and he is a very helpful and strong man, and an excellent horse-rider too. Kashkar has been many times in the Raiwand Tablighi Madrassa in Lahore, and has done the four-month "Great Chilla" for religous studies.

Umeryaar, the older brother of Kashkar, a spokesman of the people from Diamoroi and their summer-settlement Khudu Ghali (near Diamer BC). Umeryaar has longtime experience with expeditions on Nanga Parbat and is a contact-person for expeditions specially in Khudu Ghali.

Badar, the younger brother of Kashkar and Umeryaar, is a very strong man and very helpful for trekkers and expeditions. Like Kashkar and his brother Umeryaar, Badar has contact and experience with numberless expeditions comming to Nanga Parbat.

Haji Manan, from Diamer valley, a cousin of Liver Khan and Samander Khan, is one of the best known guides and Liaison officers to Nanga Parbat, specialized in working with the top- and famous mountaineers from all over the world.  Haji Manan has houses in Ser and Kachhal. His late father and his uncle were the persons who carried Reinhold Messner in 1970 from Ser to Bunar Das, when Messner was injured comming down from Nanga Parbat.

Abdul Latif operates the local hospital in Bunar Jal, and takes care for all the people from this area. He is a cousin of Liver Khan and Samander Khan, and has very good knowledge in medicine. Abdul Latif has problems in getting the right type and amount of medicine he needs for the rural people. So he is very thankful in getting any medicine from expeditions and mountaineers, if the medicine has proper descriptions, so that he can use it.

Late Sher Rahman, the most prominent guide and famous high-altitude porter from Diamer, was many time topic of stories or television-movies from foreign climbers on Nanga Parbat, who were surprised by meeting Sher Rahman climbing up to collect the abandoned tents and ropes of climbing parties - without  high-tech equipment, just with plain local shoes and a hiking-stick. Sher Rahman worked on K2 in 2002 with an spanish expedition and was killed by an avalanche. He was brought back by Kashkar, Haji Manan and Liver Khan with many hardships to his homevalley Diamer and found his last rest at Diamoroi, where his grave is near the school building.

Albrecht Kraft a frequent german-visitor to the Northern Areas since 1989, has special interest in the Diamer district-,  the Diamir- and Bunar region. Albrecht Kraft is embedded in the local family- and village-structures and seen as a family-member from abroad. As a backpacker and trekker since 1979, with intense Nepal-, Canada-, Alaska-experience too, his mind is sharpened for culture- and religion-differences: for the influence and effects of tourism- and mountaineering-business to rural communities.

...there are numberless other helpful and trustworthy persons,
so this webpage - in scha Allah - will become larger and larger.